For the last four or five days I’ve spent idle time trying to chase down this feeling of mourning I’ve felt, specifically while thinking about friends or experiences I will never share. The final clue came in a UCSB Reddit post, of a group of queer women asking for a drummer to join their lesbian band. When I felt the same feeling of mourning, things cleared up a bit more.
I think I’m mourning the lack of community, which manifests in the longing and envy I find when excluded inherently from different communities. Growing up I was excluded a lot, so I have a bit more compassion for myself understanding it’s a sore spot, but I also do feel that jealousy for women-centric groups, or for exclusive communities. I’m grateful I am not necessarily a marginalized group, don’t get me wrong – but growing up as a man who was painted as a monster for being male by the powerful women in my life made it pretty hard to give myself kindness or compassion, when I was told that I was always the problem. I get that cis men cause a lot of issues for other groups, but I can’t help but feel caught up in the crossfire, as regardless of my actions or values I am automatically stereotyped in a certain way, and excluded from communities.
A part of me longs for a community exclusive to people like me, as a kind of fairness but unfortunately the idea of a “male only” has been solidified in my mind as some kind of a supervillain association.
After enough self-pity, I feel like I want to seek out a male group, perhaps focused on childhood trauma or mental health, or if I feel courageous enough to start one of my own.
Rage, maybe rage would lift me up, make me stand, make me walk
– Marlon James, Black Leopard, Red Wolf.
I deleted a sizeable post I had in place of this as I couldn’t quite refine the thoughts I had down, but I wanted to at least keep this quote I had. This quote mirrors the sentiment I’ve been posting about recently.
I’ve reached the point where I will try whatever, and put in as much effort as needed to break out of this depression.
Hopefully, in a few coming days, I will post my recipe on how I fight depression, I’ve been putting it off for a while (just like several other things 😅)
One day I expect someone to tell me how weird or pathetic it is the stuff I write down here. I can defend or justify it in several different ways, but at the end of the day I'm being honest and unfiltered here. If someone still thinks that's cringe, that doesn't matter to me. I'd rather be authentic to myself and be mocked than live as someone else.
No matter what I do, or what changes, eventually I'll end up the kid crying on the floor in the bathroom of my childhood home. The question is do I fight it with no belief that it will work?
How many of the things I've done have been for no one to see. I thought about moving this blog to tumblr, or somewhere someone would see. I thought about posting gym progress pics. I've thought about trying to get people to see and recognize me. But at the end of the day the only thing that matters is that I'm doing all of this for me. I got pretty close to losing to depression now, but the only thing left I can do is rage against it. It doesn't matter if it makes me angry, ruins my day, hurts my body, all I can do is rage. Rage at the years I've lost to this illness, the unfair obstacles put up for me, or the constant war I wage. If rage is what gets me up off that floor, and gives me a chance of fighting so be it. It doesn't matter if I end back up there, I'm not sitting down there tonight.
Sometimes I’ll realize after doing something, that I hold a small resentment that my actions haven’t been reciprocated. I’ll really put care and try to show love to the people I care about, but as it gets closer to night it rears its ugly head and reminds me that they haven’t, and most likely won’t do the same to me. I won’t have birthday parties, I won’t be monitored or observed, I won’t necessarily be a priority.
I’ll still do these acts of radical kindness, no matter what return I get back out of it. I pray the world becomes a kinder place, and I will strive towards that no matter if it doesn’t trickle back down to me.
Short post because going on a long walk, but I realized the double standard I held in my mind. To me, a good person is someone who tries to be good. In that line, someone who makes mistakes and does bad things but tries to change is good. So why should I hate myself for making mistakes as long as I want to change for the better?
I've decided to change, I can't let others have that much control on me. With hurt feet I hit a hr of 205 on the elliptical. That was the best revenge.
I returned just now from a coworker's bbq and realized I haven’t felt that alone in so long. With these people, I have made a conscious effort to be friendly, kind, and energetic. For some reason, a group of them just dislike me. I don’t know what I did, or what I could have done to make these people hostile to me, but that’s just how it is I guess. I’m pretty sure it’s a misunderstanding or miscommunication somewhere, but somehow the damage is already done. I’ve tried to ask them, but it’s been met with more hostility. I honestly don’t know what to say or do.
Sometimes, mostly while alone I feel that pull of a familiar and comfortable sadness. It feels like an injury I’ve carried my whole life, waiting for a bit of stress to remind the body it exists. There’s a deep sadness I carry, some days tucked away and masked by life more than others.
When busy or replaced with anything else, it stays as a background actor of the mind; but once the scene of the day ends it remains as a stable piece of scenery. A constant low drone of a quiet backdrop. Almost like a firm eye contact with no message conveyed, other than a reminder of the baseline state doomed to return to.
Bad attempts at poetry aside, I remember watching a video that mentioned that bipolar disorder was one of the few mental illnesses where victims would decide to have it if they somehow had a choice. I have fortunately not had bipolar disorder, but I’ve thought about my own issues in the same context: would I want to have them if given a choice? I do think that it does act as a driving force, as a constant shepherd behind with a crop, hitting you for not moving. A big way I motivate myself for going to the gym is the question I ask myself: am I willing to go back to how it was? And every time, the answer is that I am willing to do whatever it takes to not be back in that place again. So I guess that’s my answer, as non-commital as can be.